


His Inked Messages

by rischaa



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Late Night Calls, M/M, Mutual Pining, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6763627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rischaa/pseuds/rischaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s all wrong. Everything is wrong and so broken. He’s dying in pain and the words he inks on his skin are messages. He falls in love with him and it feels so right yet things never go where people want them to go, do they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Inked Messages

**Author's Note:**

> theme: soulmate au/ tattoo artist! Rin  
> ages: Haru- 21/ Rin- 21  
> -  
> fluff was intended for this fic.

**`soulmate au where your soulmate’s tattoos appear on your skin when they get one`**

 

* * *

**_“Words are like knives and knives hurt when they touch one’s skin.”_ **

**_-Anonymous_ **

* * *

He looked at his reflection on the mirror decorated with crystal like droplets of water. His hair was disheveled and wet. It was unkempt and looked like a hurricane came by to destroy his usual flat mop of hair. He looked down at his body. His body used to be rid of ink until he was seventeen. Now, parts of his body was covered with a ton of them. His damp fingers traced the words on his wrist and it made the raven haired male want to break down. This was another reason he hated the numerous inked words that covered his body.

When Haru first saw the tattoo on his left wrist, he wanted to strangle his soulmate. Haru was usually calm but tattoos were a no-no for him. He never even took a single glance at the tattoo until he became curious of what his soulmate had put on his wrist. Haru was surprised when he had seen it. He hadn’t even expected it. He would’ve thought it to be an infamous quote but it turns out it wasn’t. Words were written in a handwriting that Haru considered quite a mess but still manageable to read. It had said,  _“I hate myself.”_

He was only seventeen at that time and his soulmate’s words meant nothing but the truth to Haru. Haru despised the  _damn_  thing on his wrist but it gave him a new insight to who his soulmate was. His soulmate was a person who understood how the world was. How cruel and merciless it was. How suppressed it was. When he had seen the tattoo, his reaction was to strangle his soulmate but when he actually had considered to look at it, it- gave Haru a feeling he disliked. It reminded him of memories he didn’t want to remember.

More over the years, the inked words increased in the same handwriting with words that Haru didn’t want to see daily. He even wore long sleeved flannels or polo shirts so that he didn’t have to see them. There were so many reasons to why he didn’t want to see the tattoos of his soulmate. They were sometimes way too sullen and deep like how others would say. They reminded him of his ignorant parents who wanted him to be perfect and Haru didn’t like that. Also, the tattoos made him look more of a gangster than he really was. Even though he hated them, he always managed to appreciate them before he went to bed.

There was a small outline tattoo etched onto his collarbone that had a person’s initials which he assumed was his soulmate’s name. Surrounding it on top of the initials was the outline of a shark in red. It looked normal to Haru and he kinda liked it. It was the one of the tattoos that wasn’t in someone’s handwriting. It was weird to see random words appear onto his body but it was sometimes amusing to know what was on his soulmate’s mind sometimes.

“R.M.” he whispered to himself.  _His soulmate’s name._ He often wondered who it was.

Haru had always wondered why he needed his soulmate. Soulmates were people and he didn’t need the company of people. Sure he had friends but he didn’t really know why they even stuck with him. He was just a person who loved swimming and he remained quiet most of the time. He didn’t understand why people caught him attractive to talk to or to even approach.

People were a waste of time for his overly damaged heart. His heart has been wrecked over by his father that wanted his future to be as perfect like theirs. His father had cared about who his soulmate was and he didn’t understand why. He only found out the reason when he had turned fifteen. His mother was arguing about how his father feared him getting a male for his soulmate.

Haru hated that they wanted him to be someone else that he wasn’t. When he had come out to his parents, his father had wanted to disown him. His mother left him as he was, she said nothing and had smiled at him which she had rarely done in her span of living.

Haru liked it when his mom had smiled on that day. He had rarely seen her smile in photos and he’d always wished that he’d one day see her smile. Her smile gave off warmth and care. It looked apologizing but it also looked supporting. It gave him the courage to visit her at Tokyo once in a while. Haru hated how such a mother like her ended up with a homophobic father like his. It was heartbreaking and stupid; but she always told him,  _“Gender doesn’t matter. It’s always how you met and how your own love story will turn out.”_

He dried his hair, walking out of the bathroom, sighing deeply. Haru went and wore his cooking apron. Grabbing the defrosted mackerel by the sink, he started to cook it onto his stove. Cooking mackerel was one of the things he was good at but cooking other things, not really. After all, mackerel was the only thing he was taught to cook at a young age.

“Haru? Don’t you ever get tired of eating mackerel?” a voice asked with an unsurprised tone.

Haru didn’t bother to turn his head around, knowing fully well it was his friend, Makoto. Makoto always did this during mornings when he wouldn’t come out early from the bathroom. He often liked submerging himself in the water during the pretty mornings of spring. He would spend more than an hour or two, just sitting there in the bath, contemplating over things.

“No,” he gave his usual reply.

Haru finishes cooking the mackerel and dividing it to two, he places it on a plate with hot, steaming rice. Makoto smiles genuinely at Haru and sits down on the floor to eat along with him.

“Haru, you’re coming with us to the shop, right? You don’t have to get one if you don’t want to,” Makoto asked Haru.

Haru nodded in reply. He looked at his wrist with the tattoo covered with a brown rope bracelet.  _Maybe, just maybe, he should get one._

* * *

“Haru-chan! Are you getting a tattoo too?” the bubbly blonde asked him enthusiastically.  

“Stop it with the  _–chan_  already Nagisa,” he nonchalantly told the blonde, pausing for a while, “No. I’m not getting one.”

“Aww… I’m getting one on my wrist-” Nagisa’s voice was drowned out by Haru’s inner thoughts.

Haru wondered why he even bothered to go with them.  Well it wasn’t that he was complaining about the situation but something was bothering him and he wanted to stay at home. His mother hadn’t called him two weeks in a row now and he’s worried something may have had happened to her. He tried to shake off the odd feeling, but it was impossible to do that when he had many things on his mind as well. His soulmate was one of them. More irrational tattoos have appeared on his left arm and they all made but no sense.

It wasn’t long before he had turned nineteen when he knew his soulmate was in pain.

Haru wasn’t one to really care much about what other people felt aside from his friends, but his soulmate was  _different_. Different from everything- and everyone else.

_So he wanted to save him._

“Haru? Haru-chan? Haru?!”

He was instantly snapped back to reality. Nagisa and Makoto were shaking him as their voices asked in unison if he was alright.

“Are you alright? You had that glassy stoned look on your eyes,” Makoto told him, worried, sending him a look that said,  _“You looked like you saw a ghost.”_

“Yeah, I’m alright. I just had something on my mind, that’s all,” Haru replied flatly.

“We’re almost there, just a few more blocks Haru-chan!” Nagisa told him cheerfully.

Haru felt Makoto’s distinct gaze towards him. He turned to look at him and gave him a face that said, _“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”_

Makoto smiled at him and Haru decided to leave it at that. Nagisa’s voice was drowned out again by Haru’s thoughts and he only snapped out of it when he heard the tinkling of the bell when they had entered the shop.

* * *

He walked into the shop with a huge smile and a white haired male approached him saying, “You’re late again Rin-senpai! You shouldn-”

“I know. I know. Don’t lecture your own senpai, Ai,” he playfully told him with a grin on his face.

“You were already late three times in a row this week, Rin-senpai. Nii-chan is worried and so are the others,” Momotarou told him anxiously, who was on the station to his left.

“I’m fine, tell him. I just haven’t been waking up properly to my alarm these days,” he told him.

“Hai, Rin-senpai.”

He set down his backpack by the table of his station and sighed for the sixth time of the day. He was tired. He just wanted to stay at home in his bed as he contemplated life’s decisions. He looked at the tattoo gun laying carelessly on his station. He tried to remember if he had cleaned the needle in the gun and after a waste of three minutes, he decided he’ll just replace it.

Grabbing a new needle for his tattoo gun in the drawer his station, he bumped into their red-orange haired manager,  _Mikoshiba Seijurou._

“Oi, Rin. You’ve been coming late these past three days of the week. My brother told you already didn’t he?” he told Rin as if he was mad at him which made Rin almost drop the needle and the gun.

“Hai.”

“Well, that’s fine, but you’re treating all of us dinner this Friday,” Mikoshiba told him with a grin as he turned to walk back to the reception desk.

“Okay!”

He really didn’t want to go out on Friday as he just wanted to stick to his daily routine which was to jog in the morning, take a quick swim in the public pool and then drop by his favorite café,  _Iwatobi Café,_  where his younger sister, Gou, worked as the assistant manager. It looked like he won’t be doing any of that, though. If he wanted Mikoshiba to not fire him, well, he had to make some sacrifices.

Rin attached the needle to the gun and looked at his left wrist remembering the first time he had decided to tattoo himself. He knew the consequences of probably getting hurt as he was just a starter at the age of seventeen, but he went ahead and did it anyway.

Rin never wanted to remember why he even bothered to get a tattoo on his left wrist as it reminded him how much everything went downhill at that certain age and why he was still suffering until now. He came out to his girlfriend and she didn’t look all that happy. Weeks after that, they had stopped talking and she broke up with him calling him  _‘gay’_  as if it was the worst thing in the world.

Competitive swimming also took its own stupid part in his life in Australia. He wanted to get better in Australia, but he soon gave up, seeing many of the talented swimmers there mocked him for being the  _odd_  one there and how he was from Japan.

It hurt him so  _fucking_  much. He missed Japan. He missed his little sister who would always worry about welfare. He missed the cherry blossoms that would bloom in spring, but he was there, miles away from the tiny country he loved.

He supposed that it was to remind him that everything wasn’t worth to do anymore. That he wasn’t worth it. That he was in an endless loop of pain. That it all started with her and he thought she was his soulmate but he was all wrong. She had tattoos that looked like his, so he thought she was his soulmate. He was never so wrong in his whole life.

 _She was never my soulmate._   _She was just a liar._

_A fucking goddamn liar who fooled him so damn good._

_He hated himself._

“I hate myself,” he whispered to himself, his eyes closed as he leaned against the porcelain table of his station.

The tattoos on his body proved just that. He tattooed himself almost every day after everyone had left the shop and hell often broke loose in his head. If the inked words weren’t enough to hurt his mind and soul itself, he often screamed why his soulmate wouldn’t come and save him.

He just wanted, no,  _he needed_  his soulmate. His soulmate who should be his savior and that the tattoos on their skin were meant to be a way to find their other half. They never came.  _Never._

He lost hope every day and yet he waited every day of his  _damned_ life.

Rin thought soulmates were stupid and that the system was nothing but crazily broken. Soulmates weren’t meant to be together. There was no such thing as  _‘soulmates’_  but seeing his friends at the shop like Ai and Momo, it was kind of impossible to think that. He thought that he was a mess and a nobody all in all. He covered himself in inked wounds to fool himself that the emotional pain was never there.

The redhead was soon brought back to reality when Sousuke gripped his shoulder tightly.

“Oi, Rin. Are you alright?”

Rin gulped and blinked his eyes before replying, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just something on my mind.”

“Well fix yourself, the hipster girls are yet out there again. They’ll want you to tattoo their skin, like all the other girls do,” Sousuke said as if he was angry at them.

“Don’t they know this tattoo shop is oozing with gayness within their employees?” Rin mumbled loud enough for Sousuke to hear but hearing Sousuke laugh loudly made everyone frozen still.

“Nani? Nani? What’s so funny?” Momo asked out loud quite gleefully.

“Nothing, Momo. Get back to work,” Rin told him aggressively. This resulted Momo to realize that even Rin can get angry at times.

_Not, really, Momo. Just a little pissed, every now and then._

Rin went ahead and welcomed the girl who looked, in fact, very pretty but too hipster for her own good. She was wearing a blue tie-dye shirt with denim shorts that were too short for someone to wear. She was also wearing black Ray-Bans and her scent was of overpriced coffee. Rin hated it.

“Welcome to Samezuka’s Tattoo Shop! I’m Matsuoka Rin and I’m going to be your tattoo artist today? What’s your name?”

“My name- my name i-is Jane,” she spoke in broken Japanese. He assumed she was from an English-speaking country.

“Hey, do you want me to speak in English, so that you don’t have any trouble?” he asked with a smile that was plastered on his face which was necessary or else everyone would think he was one grumpy dude.

“Y-yes please. Thank you, uh-”

“Rin,” he told her.

“Thank you, Rin-san,” she smiled widely which mildly surprised him as she looked very shy herself.

“So, what tattoo would you like?”

“I just want an outline of a miniature cherry blossom on the side of my right index finger shaded from light pink to darkish pink. Is that too much? I’m sorry,” she told him.

“No, no that’s alright Jane. I won’t be using a stencil since it’ll be small, is that fine? I’ll use markers to draw the outline then I’ll rub it off, okay?” he chuckled to himself.

She only nodded. He guided her to sit down on the chair next to the porcelain table. He knew that her cheeks were showing a tint of pink when he had bent down to grab the gloves he owned from the third drawer. He slickly put them on making her blush more. Rin laughed inwardly. He loved teasing people like her, thinking he was straight and all.

Grabbing a 0.5 ultra-fine point marker from the case, some cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, the colors needed, and his tattoo gun, he started the process. Rin wiped her skin with the rubbing alcohol before he started to sketch the outline. He drew on the side of her right index finger using the marker ever so delicately and then he started to outline it using hot pink instead of black like he always does. He rubbed her skin often with the alcohol soaked cotton balls to remove the sketch of the marker.

Rin stopped outlining the tattoo and went to get a round shading needle in the size of 7 which was his favorite to use for shading. He went back to her and she was hiding her face from him, making him only smirk seductively at her. Rin dipped the needle in white and shaded around the inside of the outline very lightly. He then did the same using light pink after the white, wiping the needle before he dipped it in a new color. After that he finished it with a dark pink in the middle.

He rubbed it subtly with alcohol once again and said to her with a tempting smile, “There you go, Jane. It’s done. I’ll let you look at it before I wrap some cling film over it.”

She removed her arm on the table and took a close look at it and she gaped slightly at it.

“It’s beautiful! A-arigato gozaim-masu Rin-san!”

She blushed harder when she thanked him in Japanese which she stuttered over. This received few chuckles in the stations next to his. He only smiled at her and wrapped the finger in cling film giving her common tips to take care of it, so that it would heal properly.

He guided her to Mikoshiba and then returned to his station where the girls she was with, were about to finish who apparently requested for the same tattoo. Rin thought it to be quite stupid. He wondered if they had met their soulmates as he sat on the stool she sat on, burying his face into his folded arms on the table.

“Always the womanizer, huh, Rin?” Sousuke told him like it was more of a statement than it was a question as he patted him twice on the back.

“Yeah, I just don’t get it.”

“It’s because you hide your tattoos. Makes you look mysterious. You give off this aura that makes you look nice yet attractively sexy. Also, makes them wonder whether this amazingly good-looking guy could be their soulmate,” Sousuke replied.

“Huh. I just don’t like other people seeing my tattoos. Unless-”

“Unless it’s your soulmate, is it like that senpai?” Nitori asked him as he passed by his station.

“Yeah, something like that. I mean they could probably see it already but- you know what? It’s not worth explaining,” he tried to drive away from the topic desperately.

“RIN! Customer wants to talk to you!” Mikoshiba yelled at him. He was glad that Mikoshiba had called him away. He didn’t want to deal with that topic anymore. It was like rubbing salt in his still fresh wounds. His heart had already quickened when Nitori blurted out the question.

Rin saw a group of three men sitting in the waiting area. There was a guy with olive-green hair with a friendly looking face and he looked quite fit. There was another with pink eyes and bright blonde hair who seemed to be talking to a quiet guy who looked way too uncomfortable in his place. He had pretty blue eyes and a mop of clean, raven black hair. He looked very solemn for his own good.

He was pulling down the sleeves of his sweater downwards and clutching the ends of it into his fists. He was looking around the shop with a dubious look in his clear blue eyes and never had he seen a person look so interesting in his life. The guy turned away when he noticed Rin was staring at him which sent him back to reality.

“Oi, Rin.  _Rin_. Matsuoka!”

“Ah, sumamisen, Mikoshiba-san. What did you want me for?”

“This guy over here, he wanted to talk to you,” he pointed to the guy with olive-green hair, “Found someone interesting, huh, Matsuoka?” he whispered teasingly.

Rin felt his cheeks heat up and he immediately regretted coming here, “N-no, the  _fuck!_ No! _”_

The guy with the weird hair awfully looked a lot like his friend in the gym, Makoto, which was kind of crazy for him to think. He was also confused as of this moment. This guy really did look like his friend at the gym.

“Ohayo Rin!”

“Makoto?” his eyebrows knitted together, tilting his head, staring at him.

“Yeah, it’s me. Anyways, Nagisa wanted a tattoo and I remembered that you told me that you work here, so I decided to bring him here.”

“Oh, what about you? Do you ever even plan on getting one?” Rin asked him, raising his eyebrow sarcastically.

“Ah, right. I was going to get one on my wrist with my initials on it,” Makoto replied, “Also, I’m trying to encourage Haru-chan over there to get one as well.”

“Well, he doesn’t look like the type who likes tattoos, so why bother?”

_Rin, you shouldn’t really bother, welp, there goes Makoto’s usual explanation. Long and wait- it’s actually interesting._

“Because Rin. Nobody has ever seen his tattoos and ever since seventeen, he’s been hiding something through those sleeves of his. He’s even stopped swimming and I bet you can encourage him to get one. You’re quite charismatic yourself, despite having secrets of your own,” Makoto explained.

Rin just laughed, “Come on, go to Sousuke and get yourself inked. I think he’ll like you. He’s like you, but more serious I guess?”

Makoto laughed as he walked over there.

“Oi, blondie!”

“My name’s Nagisa!” he practically yelled in defense.

“Nagisa? Isn’t that a girl’s name? Kind of like Makoto don’t you think?” he teased him.

“Well, all of us have names like girls. Don’t you have a name like a girl too? Your name’s Rin, right? I’ll call you  _Rin-chan!”_  he explained as he skipped off who Rin followed to bring to Ai’s station since Momo was busy with someone else.

“Rin-chan? Huh, it’s girly but I’ll take it. Anyways just explain to Ai, over here, what kind of tattoo you’d like in the most detailed way possible or you can check the stencil book nearby, got it?”

With that, he walked back to his station where he could see a perfect visible view of someone Makoto had called  _Haru._  Rin was sure that  _Haru_ was a girl’s name, last time he had checked. He was confused at how the four of them had names that were usually used for girls.

Normally, Rin wouldn’t be bothered when a good looking person was sitting by the waiting area flipping through the stencil books. Good looking people like him and they never really bothered him  _this_  much. He tried to occupy himself by watching Makoto being tattooed who was in the Sousuke’s station, chatting with him, although Sousuke didn’t reply much. Their conversation didn’t really strike as much to Rin and he always found himself looking back at the man who had those clear blue eyes.

_Would it really kill him to at least- just look towards his direction?_

Rin face palmed himself. This certain good looking,  _no_ , more like the hottest guy in the shop of this moment was actually ignoring the deemed womanizer or people’s person in the shop. He  _was_ ignoring him, but a part of Rin doubted that. He wondered who this person’s soulmate was, as time passed by.  He figured that  _Haru_  was undoubtedly hiding something. For the past fifteen minutes, he had been fidgeting in his seat, fixing his sleeves, and hiding his face from Rin’s direction as if he knew he was staring at him.

Rin found himself breathing in and out quite exhaustingly and running his hand through his wine- colored hair, the longer he looked at Haru. He had bluest of eyes, Rin had decided to himself. He had the softest looking hair and that was also something Rin had decided. Rin wondered how long had he been sitting on his chair, hand supporting his cheek, watching this insufferably quiet man sitting in the waiting area.

“Rin? He’s interesting isn’t he?”

Rin turned around to see Makoto standing next to him with a modest smile on his face. Rin laughed lightheartedly which resonated through the very quiet shop except for the guns that were tattooing skin. Everyone looked at him with smirks and curious looks at his face.  _It looks like they’d figured I found someone interesting already. These people, really, they barely even know me._

“Well-“

“Don’t deny it. You think he’s good looking haven’t you? Have you  _also_  decided that he had the bluest eyes and the softest looking hair as you sat there subtly staring through his image? You did, didn’t you?” Makoto teased him as he smiled innocently at him.

“Huh?”

“Don’t act dumb, Rin,” Sousuke even persisted him, “You’ve been obviously eye-fucking him.”

“Fine, fine! I did,” he held his hands up in surrender.

“Go,” they both said in unison in a proud tone. Rin was sure they were smiling behind his back.

“Geez… I really am an idiot. That’s why I hate myself. I hate idiots like me,” he muttered to himself as he walked towards Haru’s direction as he stared at the blank tiles.

“You don’t really hate yourself, do you?”

“Huh? Uh, what?” Rin looked up to see Haru burying his face on a specific stencil book. It looked terribly familiar and Rin wanted to know why.

“I heard you say that you hate yourself,” Haru told him in a monotonic voice.

“Want a tattoo? I know you hate them and all, bu-”

_Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and make yourself look stupid even more. You didn’t even answer his fucking question. You really are an idiot._

“I want one. Can you do it for me?”

Rin was held back by his attitude. He expected him to say something like,  _‘Who are you to judge me? You don’t even know me!”_ or something like that. Instead, his voice was calm and smooth. It was if he was like water itself. He was so relaxed and calm that it was kinda scary. Rin had never met someone so composed like him. Rin assumed that he was like him. He hid things from the real world around him. The even made him more curious about this quiet man.

Rin grinned at him. It was a miracle. He grinned with actually intention for the first time in months.  _Just who was this man before him?_

“So, which one would you like? I can see you took-” Rin stopped himself as he took a look at the stencil book he was holding. It was a tattoo stencil book customized and all free hand drawn by him. Rin could see he was looking at the dolphin on the right page with eyes that sparkled like crystal droplets of water.

“The dolphin?”

“No. I want a sentence on my le-right wrist shaded with blue with a little red. Is that fine, uh,” Rin saw him pause and take a glance at his name card pinned on his shirt, “uh- Rin?”

“Yeah, come. What’s the sentence exactly? Here, write it here and I’ll draw the outline for you on a stencil.”

“I want it in your handwriting.”

“What? Why?”

“Because, I like it.”

Rin stared at Haru with a blank and incredulous face with his cheeks heating immensely. The redhead was confused by the raven haired man’s words.  _Oh, well, he’s a customer and a hot one too. Wait, what the fuck am I talking about? Anyways, the customers are always right._

He watched Haru write on the paper slowly and then he looked at the paper gave to him reading the words to himself,  _“I’ll save you, wait for me. You won’t have to hate yourself anymore.”_

He smirked to himself. He bet it was for his soulmate. Rin’s mind wondered who Haru’s soulmate was once again. It bothered him and the heavy, nagging feeling at the pit of his caged heart wouldn’t go away as he started to gather the materials to tattoo the words onto Haru’s wrist.

“Sit here,” Rin patted the wooden chair with a shark printed pillow cozying on it.

Haru only walked over there as if someone had ordered a robot to make him sit there, but he didn’t look like a robot at all. He walked and sat on the chair gracefully. Rin wondered how his body moved like that. Rin also wondered why he had such long sleeves.

“The sleeves, uh, you, uh, kinda have to- you have to pull ‘em up.”  _Great going, Matsuoka Rin. Stuttering in front of him already? You must really find him interesting. The last time was when you met that girl. She broke you so ba-_

“Agh!” Rin shouted louder that he meant to, leaning onto the table, slightly burying his face into the table.

His hearing blacked out and only heard one voice in his head and it was one that sounded like the sounds of water.

* * *

Haru watched him lose it. He was so energetic and happy, then- and then he lost it. The red haired male was just telling him to put his sleeves up and then he screamed which made him jump from his seat. No one had shaken him this badly and he wondered why. This guy was so weird. He was- he was different. It was like he had an ongoing battle in his head and he’d somehow lost it.

“Are you alright, Rin?” Haru asked with concern as he touched his shoulders which sent a tingling and burning sensation when the tips of his fingers made contact with the man before him.

He could see him trying to calm himself down and count from one to three. It scared Haru. He was breathing unevenly and soon, he regained his breath.

“Doumo.”

Haru was surprised. He didn’t understand what he meant but Haru was glad to see him smiling again. He sat onto the chair, and rolled the sleeves on his right arm, trying to hide the huge tattoo etched onto his right shoulder.

“Sorry about that. Just lost it for a second, he smiled at him as if nothing had happened, wiping alcohol onto his wrist.

“It’s alright.”

Haru then watched him dip the needle in the small cup of ink that he assumed was the color blue. Rin’s hands moved gracefully over his wrist and it was beautiful to watch him so concentrated like this. His eyebrows were scrunched up and he had a cute composed look as he saw him write the last few words onto is skin.

Haru wondered why he bothered to get a tattoo. He supposed it was when the manager had told him to check the tattoo stencil books out and the one he first picked was Rin’s customized one. His tattoo stencils were so deep into meaning. Haru wondered if he was an art major. It was when he came across the dolphins, he stopped flipping through the useless book. There were so many dolphins and he hid his face behind it wanting to cry. His mother came into his mind when he saw the dolphins and it hurt Haru when he remembered her words.

Dolphins were his mother’s favorite. They always were.

Haru had cursed him for having second thoughts about the good looking yet troubled man sititng meters across him in his station. He was male, sure, and Haru couldn’t help but remember his father’s words when he turned fifteen.

_“He isn’t homosexual! He shouldn’t be! A male for a soulmate? That’s stupidity and nonsense. I’m disowning you from our family. I don't need unbalance in my family.”_

Haru never really felt the need to cry that much in public, but when he saw the gazing man and the dolphins, he really wanted to cry. It wasn’t like him to be like this as he made sure to keep things bottled up in his heart.  _That man, just who was he, mindlessly making him reminisce those words?_

“It’s done, Haru.”

Haru gazed at it and saw the light shading of sky blue and wine red on his wrist over the words he had written as a message for his soulmate. He hoped that it would bring in the black world his soulmate lived in.

“So?”

“It- it’s very beautiful, Rin. Arigato,” he forced the words out of his mouth, stunned at how really pretty it was. He used to hate tattoos but something inside him slightly changed his mind about them. If it was Rin who did them, then he wouldn’t mind getting one more. He was extremely good looking as well.

“Haru-chan! Can I see it? Can I? Can I?” the blonde asked with pleading pink eyes.

“No,” he simply replied.

“You’re so mean,” Nagisa told him as Rin started to wrap over the tattoo to let it heal and prevent it from getting wet.

“It’ll take a week to heal, then you can remove the film by then. When you’re going to wash your wrist make sure that you wash it with light amount of water. You should be gentle to it, okay Haru?”

He nodded as he pulled the rolled sleeves down.

When they had left, Nagisa kept talking about his tattoo, how pretty it was and about his boyfriend and soulmate,  _Rei_. Makoto just listened to him like he always would but Haru was once drowned in his thoughts again.

Rin had said,  _“Doumo.”_

_Was he thanking him or was he apologizing? It sounded more like he was thanking you._

Haru could still see the fear in Rin’s red eyes when he had regained his breath and composure. He could see the broken, glassy, and stoned look engraved onto his eyes. They looked so dull at that moment. Haru could never imagine for a person to have eyes like him; but Haru knew that sometimes at night, when he looked at the tattoos on his skin, he knew, that he had the same exact look.

Haru felt as if he had met Rin before. It was like he believed his words faster than he learned swimming. It was like he trusted him and knew him when they talked over the simplest of things like why Haru liked his handwriting. Haru was sure that his handwriting somehow looked very familiar to the one on his left wrist.  _Maybe Rin was his soulmate?_

“How was Rin?”

“He was interesting.”

“I doubt that was the only thing you thought of him,” Makoto frowned at him.

“Well, he was  _hot,”_ he blurted out without even thinking.

“That’s very un- _Haru_  like you to say things without thinking. You like him?”

“Well, he’s attractive and mysterious. There’s something about him,” Haru was sure he was losing his train of thought. He was just randomly rambling about Rin and he barely even knew him. But there was something in his chest that told him he knew more about him that he already thought he did.

“Yeah, Rin’s like that. He uses it as a front and thinks no one will notice that he’s hurt and all. He’s terrible with his feelings too and I think if you were his soulmate, I don’t think I’d be surprised at all, Haru. Anyway, have to go.”

Haru pondered over Makoto’s words over an unhealthy amount whenever he hung out with Rin and the others. It was getting very tiring day by day to find himself slowly being drawn closer to his presence and entirety with him always leaving a reason for Haru to be falling in love with him.

Haru didn’t want to be attached to the puzzling and complicated redhead but it was too late. It was three months too late for him to erase his feelings especially when he’d fallen too deep.

Sometime during the duration of three months, Haru found a whole new meaning to the system’s way of finding soulmates. Tattoos weren’t meant to be a decoration.

_They were a path to guide you to your soulmate. They were meant to be messages._

* * *

The night was so young and yet it felt very nostalgic to the nights they spent watching the stars, not much words exchanged. The wind was subtle and smooth, not rough and uneven. Pink petals adorn the paths laid around the park. People walked lazily and sluggishly on the paths and Haru watched them out of boredom.

Times passed and all Haru was sigh deeply as his mind was being mercilessly invaded with thoughts. He stared at the bracelet on his left wrist that covered the tattoo of his soulmate. It was one of the reasons he got a tattoo on his right wrist to replicate on his soulmate’s wrist. He sighed again, a frown unconsciously forming on his face.

He missed  _Rin_.

Rin who had the color of red for his eyes and hair. Rin who had the brightest smiles and grins he found unbearably adorable. Rin who hid from the world and everybody else. Rin who cried every night and called his number countless times. Rin who was a big liar who yearned for his soulmate. Rin who was hurt and yet still smiled every morning. Rin who was tired of his life. Rin who was in love with someone else.

It hurt Haru so much when Rin had told him he was in love with someone. That was the day he also found his heart’s broken shards laid sparsely on the floor. The day he found he was his soulmate. The day he became emotional more than he already was. It was getting tiring to wake up from nightmares yelling for his name. It was getting exhausting to hide his identity from him.

_Of course it hurts, Haru. You’re in love with the fucking crazy and stupid blockhead._

“Love, huh?” he asked mockingly at himself.

 _Love._  Haru deemed it stupid and ugly. Haru decided it was also pretty. It was feeling he felt solely for the redhead. He didn’t know when he had fallen in love but his grandmother had said that you fall in love with a person countless times. Haru fell in love with him, when he grinned at him when he told him he was going to get one. When he called him at nights and told him about his nightmares. When he hugged him tight. When he told him about the tattoo on his left wrist.

He fell in love and boy, did it hurt so much. Haru wanted relief from the pain.

Haru looked at the time. It was eleven forty-six. 

He ran.  _I guess he’ll never forgive me this time. He’ll hate me for the rest of his life._

* * *

Rin was on his bed, clutching his soaked pillow, crying himself to sleep once again as his hand hovered over Haru’s contact for the sixth time this night. He wasn’t answering his calls and the automated message of his voicemail was annoying the  _fuck_ out of his mind.

The demons were creeping behind his back, chills scampering over his back, voices being whispered into his head, flashbacks shown through his swollen eyes. Cheeks stained with dried tears, hair messed up from him trying to tear it out desperately, voice rasped out and body yearning for someone’s embrace.

_Why isn’t he answering? Is he mad at me? Fuck, maybe. You’re probably not important to him, anyway._

His door opened out of the blue to show a panting figure, hand on the door, head and back bent down. The figure was saying something but Rin couldn’t hear him over the many voices crowding in his head.

“Rin.”

His name sounded so foreign when anybody else said it, but when he said it, it was like being freed from the cage he set upon his own soul and heart. It was fucking hard when you’re hurting and in love with someone who was distancing themselves away from you. It truly was _god-fucking-damn_ hard. So hard.

It was even harder when the person you loved was the only person who can bring color and life to your drowning soul.

“Rin,” he hears the calming voice again, the vigorously angry voices become static and he feels an embrace around his body. It was  _very_  uncomfortable.

“I’m  _so_ sorry. So  _fucking damn_  sorry,” Rin sees his face and he feels the need to punch his beautiful face.

He saw his watered eyes glistening even in the dim lit room, the door slightly open. He saw the blue eyes become scared as he saw him remove his jacket and sweater off in a shy manner. His figure is crazily beautiful and that’s all that is on Rin’s mind until he sees something fairly noticeable on his shoulder, collarbone and most of all, his  _left_  arm.

Rin has doubted it many times but-

_Haru, you little shit. I fucking hate you. You can’t be- not now. Not wh- not like- please-no fuck._

“Is that- please- Haru- tell me it isn’t.”

“Yeah, it is," Haru looked down.

“I- I- no. Please. Please,” he repeated over and over with tears at the edge of his eyes, body trembling, his eyes stared and took note of Haru’s tattoos.

“Rin, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell-”

“You’re lying. You even told me you were going to save me! You broke your promise. You-”

“Rin, listen to me,” he saw him fall to the ground, his eyes dulling, tears falling. He wiped them off, “I know you knew. I know that you hate me for not being able to save you. I’m sorry. That’s because I’m weak. You don’t have to forgive me and shit like that, but please let me tell you- let me-”

“ _Fuck you, Haruka Nanase._   _Fuck you_  for messing me up every day,” Haru smiled and Rin never expected to see him smile at this certain situation. His smile… it was so touching and dear, so innocent and broken, “ _Fuck you Haru. Fuck you.”_

_But, I love you and you’re so damn unfair. Why did I have to fall in love for you? Fuck you._

“I love you Matsuoka Rin,” he watched the words roll out his tongue as Haru’s left hand touched the collarbone tattoo he had.

“The soulmate system is totally fucking broken and it’s confirmed,” he said to himself, voices being drowned by the repeating echoes of Haru’s last words.

“We’re a bunch of idiots in love, right? This isn’t wrong, right?” Haru breathed shakily.

_Is he scared?_

“No, not at all.”

“I love you,” Haru repeated.

“I know and I still hate you. I still hate that  _I fell in love_ with you, Haruka Nanase,” he walked over to him, embracing him, He felt Haru try to detach himself. Rin only hugged him closer and tighter, feeling Haru’s bare back.

“We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

“Mmm.”

“What now, Rin?” he asked him, unsure, voice shaky.

“You can shut up,” Rin removed his arms around Haru.

He leaned in to kiss him and he never felt more alive by the edge of tonight. He’s safe once again and that’s all mattered. Cherry blossoms bloomed gracefully that night.

* * *

 

Rin doesn't have to send his special inked messages much nor does he have to often run away. He often had nightmares and demons whispering blatant lies in his ear, but it's all fine, because he's there to comfort him. He's there every night for him and every single time. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for readin this piece of yechiness.  
> -  
> you can find me on my [tumblr](https://chrischaa.tumblr.com) and rant about rinharu or anything (or you can ask me questions bout anything!)  
> -  
> feedback is amazing like cookies ☆⌒(≧▽° )


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